


Something Amiss

by Dichotomous_Dragon



Series: Prowess [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dorian being awesome, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Rescue Missions, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:36:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dichotomous_Dragon/pseuds/Dichotomous_Dragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evelyn Trevelyan had a tendency to comb through the destroyed villages they came across, salvaging clues and information and the <em>very </em> occasional survivor.  Usually when they came across such villages, they were not still actively burning.</p>
<p>Dorian has a hunch and has to pull off something unorthodox to save a bunch of kids stuck in burning building.  Because of <em>course</em> he does!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For a DAKM prompt: Dorian has learned a lot from his travels and has many natural talents, some that people people expect from a Tevinter mage and some that they never expected. It is not hard to see, if one has eyes, why the Altus is so confident...he has every reason to be. Physical specimen? Naturally. Gifted mage? Of course, but that is hardly the extent of his skill set.
> 
> Also OMG I GOT AN ART!! Thank you MermAight!!!!  
> http://merm-aight.tumblr.com/post/113159528122/dorian-has-a-hunch-and-has-to-pull-off-something

Evelyn Trevelyan had a tendency to comb through the destroyed villages they came across, salvaging clues and information and the _very_ occasional survivor. More often than not she and her Inner Circle ended up leaving with a note or two for the archives and a doleful sense of failure that lingered for days.

Usually when they came across such villages, they were not still actively burning.

This village was not only very much on fire, the people who had _set_ said fires were still there, loading up wagons of spoils and making ready to flee, visible on the opposite end of the town’s main street. They appeared to be in no rush; whomever would’ve been there to stop them had already been dealt with, it seemed.

Dorian could tell even at this distance that they were not facing Venatori or Red Templars--no, these were common thugs, highwaymen taking advantage of the chaos that was Thedas at any given moment these days. A scowl tugged the mage’s attractive features down; he heard his anger echoed in the feral growl that loosed from The Iron Bull’s throat. The Qunari had already dismounted and was barreling down the thoroughfare at a full run, huge hammer already drawn and raised as he bellowed a challenge. Evelyn was close behind, grabbing her horse’s reins and Bull’s and lashing them a safe distance from the fire. She grabbed her staff, taking stock of her other companions. Upon seeing the Tevinter’s nod to the affirmative, Trevelyan brought a barrier to existence around Bull and took off after him. Fire gathered at the tip of her staff, the Veil warping visibly (to him, anyway) as she pulled up her first attack. Varric struggled down off his stocky pony (short legs and all that), catching Dorian’s eye with a fierce grin.

“Bianca’s not going to let Tiny steal all the fun,” he said, cocking said crossbow menacingly, “You coming Sparkler?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” the mage replied lightly, mimicking Trevelyan’s motions earlier with his mount and Varric’s. “I’ll give you a head start so you may partake, Ser Dwarf. Once I join I fear you’ll find yourself lacking targets.” Varric snorted and was already off at a lope, picking off one of the bandits even as he ran. 

Dorian gathered his staff, heading after his fellows at a brisk walk. He scanned the avenue even as a bolt leapt casually from the gem set atop his stave, frying an archer before he could draw an arrow against Varric from cover. Something niggled at him; something was _wrong_. He was not concerned about the others--bandits were hardly going to stand a chance against the Inquisitor, The Iron Bull, and Bianca--but there was certainly something amiss here, something he could not quite place.

“Dorian!” He heard Evelyn’s cry and again his instincts did their job; he sprung backwards without realizing what the issue was but found out immediately when half a destroyed building collapsed into the space he’d been standing in moment before. “Dorian?” 

“I’ll find another way through,” he called back, unable to see her over the burning pile. He turned to his left and charged down a side street, the buildings around him all but consumed. The smoke was thicker in the narrower alley but he had to press on. He’d heard it, a soft cry of fear echoing to him, a quiet noise a split instant after the tumult of the stone and wood crumbling before him. His pathway eventually became blocked by what appeared to be the remnants of a roof but the mage had a feeling he’d found his quarry nonetheless. The crying had gotten louder and the home directly before him appeared to be largely whole still, holding together despite half the neighbor’s house having landed on it. The door was blocked by burning timbers. 

Of _course_ it looked like it was about to collapse. One elegant sweep of his staff raised the heavy wooden beams out of Dorian’s way and a second coated him in a glittering blue barrier; lamenting ever so slightly the inevitable damage to his clothes, Dorian dropped his left shoulder and broke the door in.

Several different pitches of scream greeted the mage as he stumbled into a room that was rapidly filling with black smoke. He had no time to further contemplate as a figure slammed into him, knocking the staff from his fingers and Dorian to the floor. A thin woman in a charred, homespun dress kneed him viciously, clawing and snarling like a wildcat and hitting every inch of him she could reach.

“Bastard!” her Trade was heavily accented. “I won’t let you have the little ones!” Dorian swore in Tevene and caught her fist, turned her arm before she could hit him in the face. It was a feat, but he managed to struggle up to his knees, keeping the woman’s free hand from finding purchase as she struck out wildly at any bit of him she could reach. Someone sobbed off to his left.

“ _Vishante kaffas,_ woman, I am not here to hurt you!” Careful of his actions but forceful, he shoved her away; by the time she spun to attack him again Dorian was on his feet, staff in front of him and braced. She held back, lips curled back in a snarl. That was when he saw them: three girls, not a one of them over twelve or thirteen, and a boy the same age, herding a half-dozen smaller children and three infants in slings on the far side of the room. The mage grimaced. _Therein lies the source of the frightened crying._

“Why should I believe you?” the woman growled, dragging his attention back. She had armed herself with a pitchfork and had the look of one who knew how to use it. Very deliberately she’d side-stepped in between Dorian and her charges, a very clear challenge. _Why did_ no one _ever believe he was a good guy without him proving it first, the mustache?_

_Maybe it was his fashion sense being so cutting-edge relative to the common Fereldan styling. He refused to blame his mustache._

The ceiling took that very opportune moment to make a very loud _CRACK_ and two of the children burst into more frantic tears.

“ _That_ would be why you need to trust me,” the mage said smartly, leaning his staff against the doorframe and raising his hands in a submissive gesture. “Your enemies are fleeing as we speak. We should be doing the same.” It was a long moment before the woman nodded, gesturing the children forward. Dorian let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, retrieving his staff and moving to help one of the teens who had a smaller child clinging to each hip and a baby in her arms.

Dorian didn’t have time to swear, barely registering what the sound meant as another sharp crack split the air. His staff struck the floorboards amidst a chorus of terrified screams and a corona of blinding blue light as the ceiling beams split and the house collapsed on top of them.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn’t know how long it had been--hours, certainly, judging by how hard his white-knuckled hands were shaking, clenched still around his staff. An unbecoming amount of sweat beaded down his neck. Dorian had long since locked his knees to quell their quivering, keeping himself upright. The barrier held for now, would hold as long as he didn’t move or speak; didn’t lose focus, and didn’t burn out every ounce of his life force sustaining a spell he was quickly running short of mana for.

There was _some_ academic merit to his predicament at least. Behind the concern and his precipitously dropping power reserves, a small part of Dorian was excited he'd done it: a physical manifestation that transcended the normal limitations of the spell’s typical form, a barrier that held a shape other than that of its target’s body. He'd managed to reach beyond, had formed a large half-sphere that was holding the flaming ruin of the house off of him and the trapped survivors. Ripples of exhaustion were niggling at him but he had to hold in case...well. In case Evelyn and the others had any notion as to where he might be.

Several of the children were still crying, albeit more softly. The boy and one of the older girls had handed the babies off to others and were digging rubble away from the door (he could hear but not see as much, the inordinate amount of strain making him too nervous to risk a glance). Someone--a small girl of about 6, he thought--was curled about his leg, clinging to Dorian like a lifeline which, truthfully, he supposed he was. Maker only knew why the girl wished to be near him, however. The rest of the younger children wanted nothing of the sort. This little one had a small vice of hand clenched into the fabric covering his left hip, the closest thing to a hug her small frame could manage. The mage was at a loss on that one.

“Dove,” the woman was across the room, tending the younger kids. Dorian glanced at her when she hissed, voice tired, “get away from him.” He felt the little fist tighten into the cream-colored silk of his armor as the little thing shook her head, just as she’d done the last four times she’d been told to move away. Dorian could not see much of her beyond the crown of fluffy brown hair and the shoulders of a green muslin dress but he was finding an odd affinity for her. 

Something behind him cracked with a sound like rock shattering...other rock. Everyone save Dorian yelped; he flinched, feeling the barrier shrink in about a foot on all sides at the wavering of his attention. A heavy voice was muted, but audible, on the other side of the door.

“Gotta be this one Boss, I know I heard something that time.” _Bull?_ A weak little fluttering settled in his chest, driving him to distraction. Dorian swallowed heavily and closed his eyes, solidifying the barrier again, keeping the space they had not yet lost to the lowering ceiling. There was another voice further off that he couldn’t hear, asking a question, apparently. “Swear I heard yelling. If there’s anyone trapped he’s probably with them,” the big Qunari hollered.

Dorian opened his mouth and tried it, attempted to use his voice. A strangled rush of air was all he managed. Not enough. He moistened his lips and tried again...still nothing. _Pulled too much to keep the spell going, I expect._ Right. That wasn’t a great sign.

The tall, dark-skinned man could not see Dove looking up at him, soft blue eyes wide as she watched him. She saw him open his mouth, saw him try to speak and instead end up with nothing beyond a funny little puff of air. No sound came out. She was reminded of the look on her Papa’s face when the mean men had stabbed him, before she’d run off with the others that were trapped with them now. Papa had looked at her, hiding behind the heavy drapes, his mouth moving soundlessly before he fell and didn’t get back up. It had hurt her to watch and stay silent, then, but she had done as he’d said--waited for the men to leave before she ran. Papa had been scared--she knew this stranger was scared, too. He was shaking.

Dove heard the big, booming voice from far off a second time, saw the emotion spasm across Dorian’s face, and decided she didn’t need to be silent this time.

“We’re in here!” Dove yelled. She felt the tall man startle and heard Marta hiss at her again, but she didn’t care. There was another loud crack and a grunting sound, and then the blocked door came straight off its hinges.

Varric stepped up as Tiny took the door down, sliding in with Bianca in case there were hostiles, not that he expected any. He found himself staring down many pairs of wide eyes in small human faces, one of which was grinning at him from the hip of a figure the dwarf recognized. A lopsided grin pulled at his previously somber expression while he loosed a “Well, shit” that had the big Qunari righting himself more quickly than his bad leg cared for. When he saw Dorian’s back, as well as his charges, Bull backed away to make room for Evelyn (who, admittedly, cut a less terrifying figure to tiny humans than the Qunari did.)

“All of you, come now, quickly--we’ve cleared the area,” her voice was soft but certain, and it drove them to action. “We have to get you out of here.” The captive audience did not need to be told twice; the woman and children headed rapidly towards the exit, Varric helping right the smaller ones and handing them up to Bull’s waiting hands, lest they trip over the rubble. Evelyn stepped around them cautiously, approaching the oddly silent Tevinter mage, eyeing the barrier holding up the weight of two houses. Appreciation clouded her mind; in the same instant, she wondered how long Dorian had left. It had taken them hours of scouring the ruined town to catch enough of a lead (a small child crying, it turns out) to find him at all. As she drew closer, Trevelyan found a small guardian had stepped forward to block her path, all earnest blue eyes and a pretty little green dress that was smeared with soot. Evelyn knelt to her level. “I need to check on my friend, little one,” the female mage said kindly. The child stared her down before shaking her head, curls bouncing.

“He’s busy,” the child said quietly. “If you bug him the ceiling will fall on us.” Evelyn’s smile grew a little more pinched. Kids were unnerving when their innocence made them more perceptive than it had a right to. She nodded her understanding, pointing at Varric and Bull.

“How about you go see my friends over there? I’ll make sure not to bug Dorian,” but the little girl was already shaking her head. Dove took a step back and resumed her possessive grasp on the mage’s hip. The Inquisitor huffed ever so quietly through her nose before straightening again. _This one is going to be tricky._

Trevelyan rounded to face her fellow mage. Dorian looked like nothing so much as a threadbare sentinel, standing with feet spread to shoulder width and back as straight as a flag pole. His hands were clutched around the burnished metal of his staff, little flickers of magic trailing up and down its length at sporadic intervals, their color washed out to a whitish blue. The fading of his normal luster showed in the sweat-dampened hair and the tremors that made the Tevinter’s body shiver ever so slightly every couple of seconds. Tired grey eyes opened at her nearness, albeit slowly, as though the thick lashes were heavy as lead.

“You had to go and do something remarkable again didn’t you, Pavus?” Trevelyan said lightly. A slight smirk tugged at his lips in response but was smothered immediately in a grimace; the ceiling groaned and lowered, several large chunks of mortar slipping through where the shimmering shield had thinned. Evelyn hunkered down a bit; Dorian snarled in Tevene, mostly in his head, pulling the barrier towards them now that the others were free. Everything was starting to shake; even reducing the size of the dome wasn’t helping much. He could not keep it from sagging, the smooth magical construct bulging in odd places like a thing Blighted. Panic tried to swell; his tenacity smashed it flat, burying it bodily beneath passion and exhaustion. He had made it this long, Maker be damned if he would let the damn house fall on the _Inquisitor_ of all people.

 

“Boss, _**GO**_.” A command, not a question; Evelyn knew The Bull well enough to know when to listen to him. She scooped Dove into her arms and ran as Dorian felt an arm roughly the size of a tree trunk close around his waist. Breath, hot on his ear, came next, certain but strained: The Bull was nervous. Wonders never ceased. “Drop the part by the door last, ‘Vint--I’ll get you there.” His breathy, wordless assent was all the Qunari needed; Bull lifted him bodily over one arm and charged for the door as fast as he was able. It was only ten or twelve feet but that was too much to outrun when rocks were falling on you.

The moment The Bull pulled Dorian from his stance was a very long one. A whirlwind of magic, disrupted from its already splintering matrix, _screamed_ though Dorian's body as the staff lost contact with the floorboards. No longer grounded or properly channeled, the taxing spell tried to leech everything from the mage sustaining it, draining mana and life force and his very breath, breaking loose of the conduits he’d maintained via his rigid posture for so long. Instead of channeling through his hands, it instead tried to leap from him from _everywhere_. Maintaining the flow of the magic had allowed him to thin the strain on himself, keeping him going much longer than what would have normally been possible. Now, though, the concussive force of the disintegrating framework was almost enough to sunder his sanity along with it, the fibers that made him, _him_ , burned away in the unleashing of a wild thing made free. Dorian choked, the agony exquisite, every nerve on fire. Colors flared and blinded him.

Dorian would later call it Pavus ingenuity at its finest. It may have been. It was also a mix that included stubbornness and good instincts that saved him and Bull both from being crushed as the magic burned out. Feeling so much of his essence bolting away from him all at once and fully unable to trust his eyesight, the mage focused on the one thing he knew to be tied to reality just then, separate from the explosions in his head: the sound of The Iron Bull’s metal leg brace thumping against the wooden floor as he ran. That rhythm gave the spell a new path to flow into. Everything in front of Dorian, opposite the sound, he let go of, letting the roof fall; everything behind him, an invisible path on which his savior was running, he upheld, using everything he had just to listen and keep the rampant magic in check.

The dull thud of veridium on wood became, suddenly, the sharp clang of metal against stone instead. Dorian gasped audibly, eyes clearing enough to see the empty room behind them. He had a moment of control as he cut the casting loose, slicing off the mana trail and finally ending the barrier. The sound was tumultuous as the house collapsed in full, filling the void where survivors had cowered with heavy timbers and stone. Dust thickened the air amid a soft shimmering of blue light.

The cause of that horrendous noise slumped unconscious in a big Qunari’s arms, a show that was much less impressive by comparison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a follow-up, a standalone part later in "Prowess." I want to hit some more of the requests from the DAKM for the whole prompt :) 
> 
> Any requests for Dorian's awesome talents, or unique whatevers? Do please share!


End file.
